Louis Colick's script for GHOSTS OF MISSISSIPPI is, by all reports,
scrupulously authentic in all major details; Rob Reiner's direction is
carefully paced, sober and responsible; some of the actors are
particularly good. The movie deals with a compelling, important and
still-timely issue, the 1963 murder of Mississippi civil rights
activist Medgar Evers, and the attempts to convict the murderer of his
crime.

So why does it seem so pat and calculated?

Perhaps the filmmakers got too close to the leading players in the
story; many of the real-life participants visited the sets -- some even
play themselves Assistant District Attorney Bobby Delaughter (Alec
Baldwin) and Myrlie Evers (Whoopi Goldberg), Medgar's widow, are
portrayed as virtual saints. Surely the real people must be more
complicated, saltier, more human than they're depicted here.

Judged as reportage, the film is impressive. In 1963, Medgar Evers was
shot in the back from ambush. He died in the arms of his wife Myrlie
and his three young children. Byron De La Beckwith (James Woods), the
Ku Klux Klan member and outspoken white supremacist who shot Evers, was
tried twice in the 1960s for the crime, but both trials ended in hung
juries. It didn't help the prosecution's case when Ross Barnett, the
former governor of Mississippi, callously shook Beckwith's hand during
a trial.

After a quick recap of Evers' assassination, the movie proper begins in
October of 1989, when some new information comes to light that might
permit another trial. Beckwith is a crusty old bastard who's even more
outspoken about white supremacy, but who's too smart to specifically
admit to killing Evers. Jackson, Miss., assistant D.A. Delaughter is
reluctant to take on the retrial of Beckwith: he's plugged into the
local social elite; his wife Dixie (Virginia Madsen) is the daughter of
a late judge well-known to be racist.

Myrlie Evers returns to Jackson when the case is reopened, but she is
skeptical of anyone, particularly a local white man like Bobby, being
able to make any headway. The murder took place 26 years before, the
case the archives is very thin, the rifle and bullet can't be found,
many of the witnesses are long dead, and without new evidence, the case
really can't be reopened. But her dignified skepticism actually spurs
Bobby on.

Nothing does this more than his visit to the Evers home; he discovers
he has a lot in common with Evers. Across two and a half decades and
the racial barrier, Bobby identifies with the murdered man, and
gradually becomes a zealot about the case. Disgusted, Dixie feels that
Bobby has ruined her social standing, and she walks out on him and
their three children.

Two investigators, Charlie Crisco (William H. Macy) and Benny Bennett
(playing himself), are assigned to help Bobby try to uncover the
necessary new evidence. Gradually, they begin to put the case back
together, sometimes in ways that are so bizarre an unlikely that if
this stuff had turned up in fiction on this subject, it would have been
dismissed as preposterous contrivance -- but all of this really
happened.

Reiner tries to avoid stressing the more melodramatic elements, but he
cannot avoid sanctifying both Delaughter and Myrlie Evers. Baldwin is
generally good, but he seems most authentic in scenes not directly
related to the Evers case. Goldberg is a tower of dignity, but she's
rarely allowed to be human as well. As with Baldwin, her performance is
fine -- it's the writing that interferes. Both roles would have been
more dramatic and interesting if there had been some suggestion that
her intransigence bordered on pig-headedness rather than utterly
understandable caution. Myrlie Evers, now the head of the NAACP, must
be a strong, forthright woman -- and people like that are not always
pleasant.

James Woods is sensational as "Delay" Beckwith. He realizes that even a
rotten bastard like this guy can actually be funny on some levels, and
Woods runs with this particular ball. He makes Beckwith into the kind
of character you love to hate, bringing an entirely new dimension to
the movie. I don't give a damn if the real Beckwith is like this or
not; all I know is that Woods gives an intense, scary and funny
performance as the dried-up old racist. You never like or admire
Beckwith, but you're glad when he's on screen; the movie stops feeling
like a shrine and starts feeling like a movie. Woods is always good,
and always a little over the top -- and I wouldn't have him any other
way.

The cast is generally admirable, including the people who are playing
themselves. Craig T. Nelson, Lucas Black, William H. Macy and Terry
O'Quinn are particularly good. And technically, the film is very
well-made. The period is believably evoked, through the production
design by Lily Kilvert; the photography, by John Seale, is clean and
handsome. Marc Shaiman, who's worked with Reiner before, did the
adequate but not memorable score.

It is very appropriate to we learn more about Medgar Evers; too many
people, blacks as well as whites, have forgotten that he raised the
issue of segregation at the University of Mississippi Law School in
1954, when he was turned down for admission because of his race. "The
Medgar Evers Story" remains to be told, and it's worth telling.

But GHOSTS OF MISSISSIPPI, as well intentioned as it is, is yet another
movie about how much white people do for the Civil Rights movement. It
is, after all, not a movie about Medgar Evers, but about his murder,
and about how a dedicated young white man brought his killer to justice
at last. Granted, Bobby Delaughter deserves endless praise for his
perseverance in the face of doubt and opposition.

GHOSTS OF MISSISSIPPI is, finally, a respectable movie, but not an
exceptional one. The performances by most of the cast are very good,
the story is worth telling, but something prevented Rob Reiner from
making the film the powerful testament it could have been.

This applies to the DVD as well. Technically, it's fine, with good
sound and color, but it has no extras at all. Couldn't Warners have
found someone -- a historian, if not Reiner -- to provide a commentary
track? Surely this story deserved more attention than just to be
another DVD from the Warner Bros. Home Video mill.